Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of Fri., June 3:
In Barry Ptolemy’s “Transcendent Man,” boundaries blur between human and machine, as Ray Kurzweil travels to more than five countries and 20 cities, thumping his bestseller “The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.” According to Kurzweil, within 25 years, computers will have consciousness and humans will merge with their machines.
Baseball fans should enjoy “Prime 9: MLB Heroics,” chronicling some of the greatest hitting, pitching and comeback moments in major league history. And the “MLB Bloopers” double-header collects the best blunders and the funniest moments on the field.
In “The Waiting City,” an outwardly happy American couple (Radha Mitchell, Joel Edgerton) travel to Calcutta to collect their adopted baby, only to discover that arrangements have yet to be finalized and, as the intoxicating, mystical powers of the Indian city pull them in separate and unexpected directions, the vulnerability of their marriage begins to reveal itself.
Kat Dennings, Andie MacDowell and Josh Lucas star in Michael Goldbach’s “Daydream Nation” about a city girl who moves to a small town and becomes entwined in a love triangle with her high school teacher and a stoner classmate.
“Savage County” is a notorious horror movie about fresh-faced teenagers who trespass on the land of mutant, in-bred Tennessee lunatics.
Classic film lovers will covet the 40th Anniversary Blu-ray edition of Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” with Malcolm McDowell, along with the Blu-ray edition of Franklin J. Schaffner’s “Papillon” with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
For foreign film aficionados, “Biutiful” is a gritty, morose melodrama by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu, acclaimed primarily for Javier Bardem’s Oscar-nominated performance. Living in the dingy, overcrowded Barrio Chino in Barcelona, Uxbal (Bardem) struggles to care for his children and colleagues, but he is dying of cancer.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Dover Koshashvili’s “Anton Chekhov’s The Duel” is a remarkable, English-language literary adaptation of a romantic triangle involving a restless philanderer, his beautiful but emotionally empty married mistress and his impassioned but emotionally unstable former friend, set during a sweltering summer at the seaside resort of Caucasus on the Black Sea.